MediaCitizen has a good summary of the efforts of the big providers to squash municipal projects. The article itself has little new information, except for a nugget of pure gold, in a box about half way down the page.
He cites St. Cloud, Florida, which operates a large WiFi network for citizens. The average savings on broadband access exceeds the average tax bill for residents, and keeps $3 million to $4 million dollars per year in the local economy.
It is nice to begin to see the results of some of these networks. I've been saying for several years that if you do the math, community investments in broadband will pay off handsomely if you can divert those telecom payments to local and regional suppliers.
Just a reminder--I don't think municipaliites ought to be providing telecom services directly to citizens. Instead, community investments ought to lower the cost of doing business for private sector companies, and those investments should help create an open, competitive marketplace. Do I think that projects like the St.Cloud effort are bad? No. I just think that over the long run (5-10 years) communities that view telecom infrastructure like roads will be better off than communities that treat it like water or sewer.